Environment, society and public policy

Is our democracy OK?

The behaviour of Trump and May over the past few days should make us ask some hard questions about our governance.

I don’t normally go to public demonstrations. Yesterday evening I made an exception, and joined in one of the many rallies around the country provoked by President Trump’s travel ban. Even more out of character, I stood up on a bench, took the proffered microphone and spoke to the crowd.

The rally was in Exeter and some 700 attended. The speakers before me had concentrated, rightly, on the impact of Trump’s travel ban and the damage and hurt it was already doing to individuals and families. They spoke movingly, based on personal experience and knowledge. I spoke to highlight the other spectre in the room – the UK Prime Minister, who failed to condemn the ban when first asked about it, and has since made only mild disapproval known through other ministers and her spokespersons. This is further evidence that Mrs May is not keen on human rights – during the EU referendum campaign, her most memorable intervention was to favour withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights (which is nothing to do with the EU).

Mrs May has steered our country into a position where our government is in effect begging the United States for an early post-EU trade agreement, as if that were the only priority in international relations. Trump had barely paused for breath after being sworn in as President, before she was on a plane to see him. And Trump knows we are the supplicant: the pointed refusal at the press conference to confirm his “100% backing” for NATO that May claims to have extracted from him; the hand-holding; and the executive order for the travel ban as soon as she was on the plane home (he clearly couldn’t have tipped her off, otherwise she would not have been so equivocal when asked about it in Turkey – wouldn’t she?)

What we’re seeing is the two leaders of the “special relationship”– both novices in their own way – practising bad government. Trump is rushing out executive orders on hugely controversial topics, firing anyone he can who disagrees with him (the acting US Attorney General has just been removed), and allowing his press secretary to use inflammatory language: the Attorney-General was guilty of “betrayal”, the senior US diplomats who are protesting against Trump’s policies should “either get with the programme or they can go.” No respect, no acknowledgement that others may have a point.

Back on our side of the pond, the Prime Minister is unmoved by a petition of over 1.5 million signatures protesting against a state visit by Trump – note that the objection is to a state visit involving the Queen, not to a working political visit. Statements from May and her office completely fail to recognise the strength of feeling on the issue: she’s issued the invitation and that’s that, is the line. Even though it’s unprecedented (I think) for a state visit invitation to be issued no more than a week after the invitee has taken office – but then there’s that trade deal to be thought about, isn’t there? A deal, by the way, that will almost certainly favour the US more than the UK, and will resurrect the objectionable elements of the now-defunct TTIP [1].

Our Prime Minister also has scant regard for Parliament. It took a decision of the Supreme Court to reassert the need for Parliament’s authority to approve the decision to give our Article 50 notification to the EU.

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the behaviour of May and Trump highlights the fragility of the arrangements for representative democracy, here and in the US. Government is, at the end of the day, a series of negotiated settlements between competing interests, and the purpose of elections is to redefine from time to time what the “public interest” is in those negotiations. Ministers need to be sensitive to the views of others, open to change where that seems to be in the public interest, and ready to acknowledge and respect other views even where they do not agree with them.

It would be ironic if the two countries who perhaps more than any others stood firm in the defence of freedom, tolerance and democracy during the 20th century were now to be debased by leaders who prefer diktat to persuasion. But that is what seems to be happening. In the UK, Parliament needs to remember that it is the source of all legitimate authority – and start acting on it. And a critical appraisal of our governance should be high on its list of priorities.

NOTES:

[1] The TTIP – Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – was being negotiated behind closed doors between the EU and the US until talks broke down last year. In the name of “free trade” the TTIP would have led to some weakening of EU rules on the environment, food standards and employee rights; and would have ensured that once a public service had been privatised it could never be returned to the public sector. It was drafted as, in effect, a charter for big business to do pretty much what it liked.

2. Preferential tax treatment for rich individuals and corporations (many of whom make large donations to the Conservative Party), whilst cutting services for the less fortunate in our society, turning Just-About-Managing (JAMs) into the poor, and the middle-classes into JAMs.

3. Favoured access, and listening and changing policy based on what these same rich individuals and corporations say, whilst ignoring the voices of the people of this country who elect the government.

4. Allowing the lies and deceits of the referendum to go unpunished, and indeed to reward those responsible (like David Davis and Boris Johnson) with ministerial positions. And then extending the mandate given by the people for a Brexit where we remain in the Single Market to a Hard Brexit.

5. The same sorts of “alternative facts” that Trump produces. Theresa May / Jeremy Hunt both putting their hands over their ears and over their eyes and saying “NHS crisis? What crisis? I see no crisis!”

6. A proliferation of unaccountable quangos run by business people – LEPs, CCGs – where the board take huge salaries, spend OUR money without any transparency, control or oversight, and who are completely unaccountable.

7. Government information which can only be deemed propaganda because they are emotionally rather than factually based. Supported by a biased press who also focus on emotion, have scant regard for facts and no regard for e.g. due process of the legal system (see attacks on supreme court judges who were simply stating the laws passed by our governments) – and who most certainly are NOT performing their role in a democratic society (the so called Fourth Estate) of holding our politicians to account for their honesty and integrity.

I have spent 3 years fighting for democracy with the tools that we are still allowed – for example the Freedom if Information Act, though the government tried to kill that off during this period – and whilst I have uncovered and can prove several instances of misbehavior, not once have I found a government regulator who can or will actually hold the perpetrators to account. WIthout this, our country is effectively an autocracy rather than a democracy.

I now perceive that Britain no longer demonstrates the cultural values of integrity, compassion etc. that I consider define Britishness, but rather is a country where the government is determined to destroy and privatise the much loved and valued institutions that again characterise Britain (like the NHS and BBC), and where I now feel ashamed of being British.